"How must he have felt, knowing at any time he could be shot down?"

We will remember them...

At this time of year we remember those who fought, and those who have fallen whilst fighting, in war.

My dad, Flight Lieutenant J.R. Hampson D.F.C. and his older brother Captain H.W. Hampson of the Royal Engineers, old boys of Grove Park School, both fought with outstanding bravery in the Second World War.

Dad trained on Tiger Moths and he flew operations in Wellington bombers and Ansons, but in my mind he will always be a Mosquito pilot.

He was at heart a forester (he had a forestry degree from Bangor University) and he loved the fact the Mosquito was made of wood!

He was in the Pathfinder division of Bomber Command and flew at least 27 missions. The longest was a five hour 40 minute investigation flight over the North Sea.

How must he have felt, knowing that at any time he could be shot down? And then it happened: he was shot down on November 17, 1943 on the way back from a raid on Dusseldorf. I have no need to go into details here as this excellent clipping from the Wrexham Leader (below) dated May 1945 says it all.

What I can add to this account is dad seldom talked about the war and that what we, his six children, know of his experiences was gleaned from his logbook (every PoW was given one by the Red Cross).

We call it 'Dad’s diary' – we each have a digital copy. It is an astonishing and revelatory account of his life in prison camp, beautifully illustrated by dad. Dad died aged 80 in 1998. Mum decided that the best place for the increasingly fragile diary was in the RAF museum at Hendon and that is where it lies today.

Uncle Wally, Captain H.W. Hampson Royal Engineers, was no less brave than my father.

He fought against the Japanese in Burma. One manoeuvre Involved a night-time swim across the Irrawaddy pushing a raft of explosives, the aim being to blow up a Japanese camp on the opposite bank. This task fell to Wally, who was an excellent swimmer. Some explosives ignited prematurely resulting in a degree of permanent hearing loss.

Another war-time accident left Wally with enduring back problems. He was on leave and having a tin bath two floors up in the hotel where he was staying. There was a bombing raid and the hotel collapsed around him.

Wally and bath made a rapid descent to the ground floor, but still united. They were trapped under the rubble. When my brother asked him what he did and how he felt he answered, “I knew they’d come and find me in the end". And they did. Wally died in Wrexham in 2004 aged 90. He was kind and jolly right up to the end.

And so we come to Uncle Bob.

Robert Jones (Uncle Bob) pictured above, was my grandmother’s youngest brother. He was in the 38th Welsh Division. He was killed at Mametz Wood in early July 1916 during the first battle of the Somme. He was 19-years-old. There was no body to send home to his grieving family. His name lived on in that of my father, Jeffrey Robert Hampson, who was born in 1918.

We also remember Uncle Edgar, my Grandad Herbert Hampson’s brother, who was gassed in the First World War and never really recovered and William Henry Jones, Uncle Bob’s brother, who was wounded in the First World War and later died of his wounds.

How must my grandparents have felt when their much-loved younger son was reported missing and was not reported to them as a PoW for six weeks?